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Published: February 14th 2009
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What do you do when your computer is running slow because you are moving around a lot of fotos? you write a travelblog. Well lots has happened since my last blog and I will try to keep this one short since many of you don't read the entire blog. I know this because everyone failed the quiz in the last blog as I had suspected they would. As usual I digressed.
Well since my last blog I have experienced Tet (Chinese new years) H'mong style, attended a Lu minority wedding "reception" as well as a Black H'mong "wake". Not to mention that I have probably taken over 5,000 fotos (don't worry I am not going to Put them all in this blog.
Where do I start? Chronologically of course. But first a little about the weather. It has been foggy almost every single day in Sapa but now that has finally change and it has been sunny now for three days. I even slept last night for the first time without using my electric blanket! ok, back to the story. Tet is a 10 day celebration for the Black H'mong. There is a lot of eating and of course
a little drinking (rice wine) to celebrate Tet. I had a Tet lunch at my friends Sa's house, then a few more on a little trip I did with Sa and then one more at Sue's house with Sa which ended up at Sa's parents house where I had a few rice wines with her brother. Part of the celebration for the H'mong is to change the embroidered parts of their clothing by taking off the old and sewing on the new. This means that during Tet most people are walking around with new embroidered parts to their traditional clothing.
Last weekend I went back to a little town called Binh Lu. The Lu minority and the Black Dao minority live near the town so it is a convenient jumping off point to visit their villages. This time I didn't take a motorcycle as in the past because there were four of us. This did limit our travel somewhat and the trip turned into a buying spree for "old" (ie used) woven "blankets". We visited only two villages and in one village we were told that there was a wedding ceremony going on. While trying to walk around the
village a few guys from the reception saw us and insisted that we join them for some food and drink. We politely refuse thinking we didn't want to crash the party but they insisted and well we experienced a true Lu wedding "reception". Unfortunately I was only able to snap off one foto of the bride and groom. The reason I couldn't get off a shot was it was a little tight at the table and it was hard to getting around to take fotos. Anyway, the guys at the table liked to shake our hands and have rice wine toasts between filling our bowls up with food. So here we are, two American guys with our two H'mong guides at a Lu party. After the reception we were "attacked" by some of the women from the village who were trying to sell us more woven blankets. Maybe it was the rice wine but I ended up buying a few more blankets which will end up staying in Sapa because my backpack is overly full.
Two days ago Sa told me that a young man from her village had committed suicide by going tot he mountain and eating a
poisonous plant (or berries). yesterday was the "wake" and Sa asked me to go and take fotos. The boy's mother didn't have any fotos of her son so she asked us to take a few pictures for here. I'll be printing them as soon as I finish writing this blog. Anyway, there were many people at the wake which was held at the boys mom's house. They slaughtered a pig and put on a feed for everyone who was there. I didn't stick around for the food but came back a little later and gave Sa my point and shoot to take fotos with.
I am trying to go to a market this Sunday and will stat to head towards Laos in about a week or so and then on to Thailand before taking up residence under a bridge somewhere. I hope all are surviving the economic meltdown.
Website update: I have been making several of my travel galleries private so if you go to my website www.fotosbydavid.com you won't find them. The FOTOS are still there, all you need to do is click on the links in my travelblogs. Sorry about this but the site was getting
way out of hand. Speaking of fotos, here are some links to new fotos:
Sapa - go to page 12 for new fotos Binh lu Ta phin Ta Van I hope these links work because I am having problem opening them here in Vietnam
Cheers,
Dave / Yogi
F O T O S B Y D A V I D
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Dave
non-member comment
You've done it again!
Congrats David! You have captured amazing faces, and wonderful places in terrific fashion, cudos! Loved that old womans reply to her age, as I cross the 40 marker I will remember that one when brats ask me mine in future!